To Live is to Learn
by Quellesirel Peredhil
Summary: Genichirou Sanada experiences rejection, victory, love, lust, heartbreak and evolution...all at the same time. Troika fic.
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: Does not own

To Live is to Learn

"Gen-chan, you little shit! Keep your fucking alarm to yourself!" Sanada Kosuke grumbles, pushing his motionless brother away from him. Nobody needs to hear an alarm at four in the morning. It took quite a bit for Genichirou to get to sleep last night, but once in lethargy set in he slept like a rock. Kosuke grabs a pillow and promptly plants himself on his brother's ass, then proceeds to shove Genichirou's face unceremoniously in a pillow. "You and your damn cuddling, how do I put up with this every morning…ugh…God!"

"Ngghh! Fuggin…Gerroff me!" Sanada Genichirou thrashes. His arms strain against the futon and his legs kick wildly against his brother.

"What, it's not my fault you can't sleep by yourself, ne...Kaa-san's orders! Ickle, Gen-chan will run-away in his sleep. By the way I heard you last night." He turns his voice to an obnoxious falsetto, "Seiichi! Renji! Oh how I love thee!" Kosuke teases, poking what could be seen of his brother's face. Genichirou growls, as he is running out of air and fast. As Kosuke begins to poke his face, the grip on the back of his head eases and he is able to turn his head enough to bite at his assailant.

Aniki rolling on the floor, shrieking and writhing with the dramatics of pain: success.

His brother could, and would take worse, he isn't worried. They'd sparred a million times, and it's not like Genichirou won often. Reveling in his victory, he thinks about calling it a morning for his kendo training…as he did stave off death…not for long.

"YOU LITTLE SHIT!" Kosuke screeches! He leaps after his brother and the two grapple like crazy, starved, homeless folk over a free meal. Limbs, feathers, pajamas and sheets fly everywhere as the brothers beat on each other relentlessly.

"BOYS!" Sanada Shizuru bellows, wearing her bathrobe and waving a kitchen broom like a saber. Her offspring immediately silence, stand at attention and resemble nothing so much as a pair of deer caught in headlights; that is, if deer made a regular habit of wearing feathers and looking depraved. She sizes up her children as they stand side by side: Kosuke is still taller by about a half a foot, they both have the same rumpled brown hair, sharp-angled features and Genichirou, as usual, was without his glasses (he was far-sighted and accepted that shortcoming, as he despised his spectacles). In fact, her Genichirou is still on the small side, considering that her husband was 6'5 and she was 6'1 herself. But that is of no consequence, as Gen-chan is her baby and she loves him despite the fact he is the runt of the family and always manages to surround himself with troublesome people. "Kosuke, there is no cussing in this house. You know very well the trouble that Gen-chan could get into if he sleeps by himself." She gave each son a hearty smack with the broom, and walked into the hallway.

"Why don't we just put him in a cage, that way he can't sleepwalk and we can feed him through a tube!" he gives Genichirou a final, albeit half-assed shove, and plops himself back onto the futon. He is back asleep in mere seconds; Genichirou has trouble keeping the envy from showing on his face. He sighs and drags the futon to the side of the dojo, where the brothers have been banished to for their frequent duels, pranks and increasing likeliness of killing each other. They used to share a room, but the rest of the family could not sleep through Genichirou's restless reading, fidgeting and exercising at all hours of the night; Kosuke could probably fall asleep during the apocalypse. Oddly enough, Genichirou lacks the ability to sleep at all unless he curls up to a warm body; as though, subconsciously he fears to be alone. If by some miracle, he fell asleep by himself, he would sleep-walk and often ended up endangering himself and others. Kosuke would never let him forget the many times that he walked into the koi pond, or wandered the house, asleep, with a kendo blade. It is no use to lock items up, or to lock him in a room, as he is always be able to find a way around the obstacles. Funny that he seems cleverer in his sleep.

Clearing all thoughts from his mind, Genichirou sets about his attempt to mediate. He is not surprised to find that it is not working. Nothing has been going right lately, why would the simple act of meditating go right?

He is in his second year at Rikkaidai Senior High, and things are as they were before, but better. Or at least one would think that things were better; seeing as the troika finally decided to try a romantic relationship, as they worked well together in all other facets of life.

Renji: Genichirou loves the face he wears collecting data, his visage supposedly impassive, but for a little twitch when he discovers something particularly interesting. He loves the aura of intelligence that surrounds his lover like a heady cloud evident to all that come near him. He loves the sinuous, willowy build of Renji's body, as he has always felt there was something particularly compelling, mysterious and wise about the willow tree. He loves Renji and sometimes, he feels like he can tell Renji anything. Other times, he feels alienated by his lover's world of data, figures and face-value apathy.

Seiichi: Genichirou loves that Seiichi's powerful and irresistible nature. He draws crowds and earns loyalty like it is second nature, and always manages to be effortlessly inspirational. His power, though usually gentle, is not always silent. When it is gentle, he can almost feel Seiichi's calm, peaceful authority humming beside him in a pleasing manner. When he is on a warpath, no amount of laps can slake his thirst for pain and training. Genichirou loves Seiichi, but often times feels that his lover is above him, and has better things to do then speak with him. Genichirou listens to his tirades, but Seiichi grows bored when Sanada starts to talk. Genichirou eventually decides it is better to not say anything in the first place, as he always manages to say either too much or too little.

Seiichi is the smart, powerful leader and Renji is pensive and intelligent – what is he? It is only natural that the two of them would be together so often, but lately he feels excluded, nearly to the point at which he feels used. Seiichi calls him for tennis matches and to pawn off his homework; Renji calls him to read through theories of data and would promptly hang up. They go on dates without him, he knows it. Genichirou tries to not be offended and by some miracle keeps his face impassive on occasions like yesterday, when they spoke about their date to see some movie that he was not invited to.

Meditation is hopeless by this point, and meditating on his love life makes him feel so much worse. He begins his katas, there is a big Anything Goes Martial Arts tournament coming up that he has registered for. He has two tickets to the event in the pocket of his backpack for the twenty forth of October; it fuels his fighting spirit to think that Seiichi and Renji might use those tickets.

With that thought in his head, Genichirou trains until six, when his train departs for Rikkai.

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Authors note: Totally stole the martial arts name from Ranma 1/2


	2. Chapter 2

Every morning Sanada gets on the train and convinces himself that it won't be that bad.

He is always proved wrong.

The freshman sitting next to him has the sniffles, and rubs his superfluous snot over the underside of his seat. The salary man in the corner of the compartment nurses a coffee, and barely refrains from spilling said beverage all over his suit as he nods off. The group of girls in middle school uniform boards the train about halfway between Sanada's house and Rikkai Dai; they giggle and group together, laughing at the badly dressed old woman sitting across from Sanada. The snot-nosed freshman leers at them. The conductor yells at the commuters to steer clear of the doors.

Sanada does his homework in the small personal space bubble created by his copyrighted glare of doom. It does not work on the old man sitting next to him, who seems to have nothing better to do than peer over at Genichirou's history essay. There is nothing as awkward as a touchy feely old man that did not know his history breathing down your neck.

Sanada leaves the train two stops early; he would rather walk. The rain from the puddles make his tennis shoes squeak, the noise of the shoes makes him feel quite ridiculous. Two blocks from the school, he spots Seiichi and Renji leaving Starbucks, each with a small coffee in hand. They walk close together without a lull in conversation. Genichirou is not sure why, but he ducks behind a newspaper stand, quickly grabbing a magazine to cover his face. Renji always buys a morning paper. He claims this is for data purposes, but Sanada knows better; he always reads the celebrity section first.

"Renji, let's go see that new movie tonight. You know, the one that just came out with that American actor," Seichii's musical voice sailed over the stand.

"Ah, it did receive three and a half stars. But weren't you just telling me that your class has an essay for English comprehension due tomorrow, and your art class is on a calligraphy unit?" Renji replied. The pages of the paper rustled as Renji flipped through it.

"Ah…that's true. I suppose I could always just give it to Genichirou. His calligraphy is good and he's in class one with you, right. The english'll be no problem for him. I'll leave him to supervise the clean-up after practice and we can make the five-thirty show."

Sanada's stomach dropped, he had wanted to see that movie too. More than he wanted to see the dumb movie, he wanted to spend time with his boyfriends…who really didn't seem to see him as anything but a work horse. The hard worker, the person who never took a break, the image he fostered through tennis, school and kendo, but he hoped his boyfriends had seen through the façade. He thought they had.

"You could do that, you know that Genichirou would do anything you ask of him," Sanada could hear Renji fishing through his coin purse.

"Yeah, he would, wouldn't he?"

Seiichi and Renji walked away from the stand, talking quietly to each other, their hands almost touch as they sway, but they don't.

For a time Sanada copies them, walking to Rikkai with fists clenched and teeth gritted. He has never felt so betrayed, not even when his brother showed Seiichi and Renji his naked baby pictures. The people he cares about more than anyone else, do they care about him at all in turn?

Genichirou sways as some hulking mass walks into him.

"Watch it!" the hulking mass growls; it is Koga the star of the Kendo team. Koga knows full well about the Sanada family dojo and has been trying to challenge him for awhile. Genichirou, having seen a few of his matches, knows well that he is on a different level than Koga; he is on a different level from high school kendo all together, he joined the tennis team in middle school because the Kendo team would be far too boring. Koga would be all too easy to take apart. Sanada merely looks at him and says nothing, although kicking Koga's ass would be a marvelous way to vent his frustrations, the risks of getting into an unauthorized fight would not be worth the gain. Should he hurt Koga, he would be kicked off the tennis team and possibly suspended. "What? The vice-captain of the tennis team is too much of a pussy to go up against Koga the Destroyer?!" He gives a final stupid laugh and walks away.

"Tarundoru," Sanada mutters, more to himself than anyone else.

High school students poured into Rikkai, surrounding the school like a swarm of bees. People talked in groups, chatted on their phones, threw things at each other and in the distance he could even see the tennis team beginning to gather on the side of the courtyard nearest the courts. Jackal is propping Marui up; the gum-chewer looks as if he spent all night watching the popular concert on television. Niou, as usual, is up and annoying; Sanada wonders if Niou needs sleep for his job as the devil incarnate. Yagyuu is quietly reading a book against the walk adjacent to Niou; Sanada sees the small smirk on his face as Niou flicks Akaya in the head. Kirihara is growling, he is not at all partial to the flicks bestowed upon him by Niou; Akaya looks scathingly at Yagyuu, as oblivious as he is Kirihara knows quite well that Niou just wants to impress the gentleman. Renji and Seiichi stand in the middle of it all, no longer the forms of themselves that Sanada saw at the newspaper stand. At school, at tennis, they were hardened characters that brook no disagreement; Genichirou can say nothing ill of it, as he is the same way.

He almost walks towards them, ignoring intense insult he observed unnoticed. Mid-step, he decides against it. Did he really want to spend another day taking notes in class, working hard during tennis practice, supervising cleanup, doing homework for two and wishing desperately he is with Seiichi and Renji?

Today is going to be for him.

Please review; I really could use some constructive criticism.


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